Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Philippines: DOE Gives More Guidance on Geothermal Feed-in-Tariff

The Philippines Department of Energy (DOE) is acquiescent to proposals of including geothermal technology in the array of renewable energy (RE) projects that shall be incentivized under the feed-in-tariff (FIT) system.

Nevertheless, Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monsada has qualified that such set of perks may only be granted to project developers based on the recommendation of the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB).

She said the NREB must carry out an extensive study on the proposal; and shall subsequently lodge its policy recommendations to the DOE for approval.

“It (FIT for geothermal) can be considered… we will have to review it,” the energy secretary said. The FIT subsidy is typically extended to qualified projects at a fixed rate for 20 years.

At this stage, Monsada indicated that they may only be amenable to granting FIT incentives to low enthalpy geothermal resources; and those developments of smaller capacities.